Kokanee Salmon Run

For our first in a long line of upcoming great adventures, we went on a trip to Strawberry Reservoir (in Utah) to see the salmon run. We loaded up in Little Boy Blue (our little van) and headed out.

We brought a few friends along with us.

It was a little chilly out there, but we brought warm cloths.

When we got to the National Forest site hosting the salmon watching event, we ran into a blast from our pasts!

Smokey the Bear!

The forest service put on the event and had lots of cool stuff to see and do. Our first stop was to head down to the stream and catch a glimpse of the bright pink fishies.

Minnie’s pretty excited.

The kids were very impressed with the fish swimming against the flow of water to get up stream.

Desi thought there should have been a lot more fish.

The salmon here were artificially introduced, so the forest service has to help them out a bit. They channel all of the fish into a collection point. There, they separate the males and females. Then they harvest the eggs from the females and take them to a hatchery. The males fertilize the eggs and they are hatched in a controlled environment. When they are ready, the newborn fish are released to make their way back downstream and into the reservoir.

The kids thought it was really cool to pet a fish!

The forest service put on a good show. They even fed us lunch!

Hotdog and a Cookie. Doesn’t get better than that.

All in all it was a pretty good day. A little chilly, but well worth it. It was a lot of fun to see the salmon and to learn about the whole process from the experts.

It was a little sad to find out that all the salmon die at the end of the season, but I guess that’s just the way they work; sacrificing their lives to give birth to a new generation.

Thanks for joining us! We sure had a blast.

P.S. — Tip for future salmon viewers. If you don’t have enough binoculars, you can always make your own!

See you next time!